By Dr.

Franklin.

So thank you so much for being here.

And any questions or discussions we want to have after uh will be great.

But yeah.

So if uh Katie, do you want to introduce yourself next?

Yeah, absolutely.

Um, good morning, everybody.

Um, my name is Katie Don.

Um helping all the mentibaris and Commissioner Miller with the violence against women task force.

Um this is really uh exciting and personal to a lot of us, and I know that this group will just continue to grow.

Um, but this is something when we're looking at at violence against women, and just in some of the data that we've shared so far, we know the number of calls per day just with Chicago police is around 350 domestic calls a day.

Um, but also just in line of the recent events last weekend and losing a Chicago police officer.

Um I think we need you know, we need to have a healthy system and a functioning system, we have to uh focus on uh their safety and health as well.

Um, and so excited to have tonight uh uh comments from the state attorney's office as well, because uh our definition of of first responders includes uh the state's attorneys who are also so embedded in these cases.

So um really excited for this and thank you everybody for joining.

Um I will kick it off.

Before we sorry, before we keep going with introductions, um Alderman Tabaras, can you just call the meeting to order or open up the meeting?

Yes, good afternoon.

This is Alderman Tabaras with the 23rd Ward.

Thank you all for joining us on this violence against women task force as we continue to have conversations and working groups today.

We we have a really great speaker that I'm looking forward to hearing what she has to say.

Dr.

Franklin, thank you for joining us today and everyone on the call.

And um, with that, we are starting the meeting and turn it over to Amy.

Thank you.

Uh, and then uh Brian, do you want to introduce yourself?

There we go.

Uh Brian CC, Director of Policy for Commissioner Donna Miller.

Thank you.

Carmen, if you want to go next.

Sure.

Carmen Navarro Jacone.

Uh been working with uh Katie and um Commissioner Miller and Alder Woman uh Tabaras on on all this on the violence against women task force.

But um having worked for 32 years in law enforcement, um, we know that the fixing the court system is not only uh public health and community health, but it's just as important to the health um and mental well-being of the officers who are doing the work.

So um I'm very excited about seeing the presentation today and discussing um how we can improve the process for everyone involved.

Thank you.

And then if you just want to popcorn it to somebody else.

Absolutely.

Uh Caitlin Brennan.

Thanks, Carmen.

Um, I'm gonna keep my video off after this because I'm sitting in a kitchen at a training that we're doing in Springfield.

Um, but thank you, uh Caitlin Brennan.

I'm the CEO of the Hunter Club of Illinois.

Um, we are a six-year-old nonprofit that works with the first responder community, um, historically working with families after the time of a line of duty loss, uh, but also took around the first responder mental health network in 2020, um, where we got clinicians um provide a number of trainings throughout the state um and focus on mental health and wellness for our first responders and their families.

So happy to be here and support.

Um I think this is a wonderful, wonderful cause.

And uh I know quite a few of you on here.

And Dr.

Franklin, it's always good to see you too.

So thank you.

Thanks so much, Kaylin.

And then if you just want to uh Dr.

Franklin, do you want to go next?

Okay.

Um so I'm Dr.

Lisa Franklin.

I am a licensed clinical psychologist.

Uh, I'm currently located in Lake Zurich.

Um, I'm also a vetted uh 100 club clinician, so I'm honored to say that.

Um I so we will talk about this, but for 21 years from 1997 to 2018, I was a lawyer in the City of Chicago's law department, specifically in federal civil rights defense litigation.

Um and what I learned the last eight years I was there, I was deputy corporation counsel, so I saw every intentional misconduct lawsuit that got filed.

And what I started to see were these patterns, where multiple officers involved in multiple shootings, multiple traumatic incidents.

And so that would be YV uh CID.

So I am honored to be here.

Um super spicy today because of your loss.

Um, but I'm honored to be here.

Thank you.

And then if you just wanna send it to someone else or I can, Sarah Smith, if you want to go.

Hi.

Sorry, go ahead, Sarah.

Hi, I'm Sarah Smith.

I'm with the Cook County Sheriff's Office.

Uh, I just wanted to uh Dr.

Franklin, thank you for that comment.

Um in the sheriff's office before I moved over to public policy.

I'm with the Department of Public Policy with the Sheriff's Office.

I was in the legal department as a FOIA officer, and similarly saw um lawsuits coming in, um, disciplinary um issues uh that I think that all can we can address, you know, in other ways to um impact that.

But yeah, I'm with the with the sheriff's office and now working in public policy as a senior public policy manager.

And I have a coworker with me, Olivia, if she would like to introduce herself.

Hi, everybody.

I'm also at the sheriff's office.

Um, I'm a project manager in the intergovernmental relations office.

Thanks.

Um, and then Susan, do you want to go next?

Hey everybody, um, I'm Susan Jacobiak.

I'm the supervisor of the domestic violence division of the Cook County State's Attorney's Office.

Thank you for having me here.

Thank you.

And then Teeny, if you want to go.

Um, and the special victims bureau, it has um it's a newer bureau in the state's attorney's office, uh, once our current states attorney joined, but it includes um a lot of gender-based violence, special what we call special victims.

So that's internet crimes against children, sexual assault, domestic violence, um, domestic violence.

We have a couple of new units for felony, domestic homicide, violent crimes against children, and then sex crimes against children, and also human trafficking.

So thank you so much for having us.

Of course, thank you.

And then I think Jacqueline, you're the last one, and looks like Betty joined, so she can go after Jacqueline.

I'll give Betty a second.

Hi everyone.

Uh, my name is Jackie.

I'm with uh the Office of Emergency Management and Communications and Policy Analyst.

So I'm just listening in.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you.

And Betty, I see that you joined.

Do you want to introduce yourself or do you need a second?

I'm gonna need a second.

I'm with some kids.

No worries.

Okay.

Um, well, yeah, we'll wait for her to introduce herself.

Alderman Tabaras, uh, there are no public speakers today.

I just wanted to um make that known that we have no public speakers.

Um if we want to get started, then uh Katie, if you wanted to get away with Dr.

Franklin.

Yes, absolutely.

Um, so again, we're so honored to have Dr.

Franklin joining us and and also our good friend Caitlin uh from the Hunter Club.

Um, we kind of envisioned this group to be a hybrid of the people that work uh in the government agencies and also those that are on the front lines with them trying to offer services and care.

And so Dr.

Franklin has an amazing background.

She gave us a little bit of.

Um, so I'm really excited to introduce her and I'll let her kind of take this away.

Um, but thank you for joining.

Okay.

Well, I'm honored to be here.

Uh, I totally recognize that I was invited to talk about domestic violence, and I'm absolutely gonna do that.

Um, but I'm also gonna rail about lawyers not getting mental health because I have the opportunity.

Um, and I'm gonna talk more generally because I'm super spicy right now about resources across law enforcement agencies.

So when we talk about domestic violence, we talk about the crime itself, right?

But what we're not doing is we're not talking about the officers who go to those crimes.

They are officers are taught, and it's totally true, um, some of the most difficult and unpredictable calls that they can go to.

The problem from their perspective is that they are not prepared.

They get training in de-escalating other people.

There's not as much discussion about de-escalating themselves.

So because I believe in serendipity, uh, I was seeing an officer yesterday, not Chicago.

He is, he gave me permission to tell this story.

He I was talking about how he felt about the recent murder and attempt murder, um, because they are unique in that the previous officer deaths in Chicago tended to involve the same cohort.

Young, not a ton of time on job, Latin officers.

And so this is the first time where 10 years on and 21 years on.

And so this is a different cohort.

These are the people where if you could say, well, that's not me because I've been on the job a long time.

Boop, boop.

This is different.

And now people are having to come to grips with that.

And every single officer I've ever come in contact, no matter the uniform, has sat on somebody in a hospital.

And so this is a unique position.

It is uniquely devastating.

And so I've gone out of my way to talk to every officer I come in contact with about how are they feeling, how are they reacting, doing a sort of quasi critical incident debrief.

And what he said to me was that that incident wasn't as upsetting to him as when another officer went to roll call, he works midnights, and talked about how he should not have gone on a domestic violence call.

So what he talked about is how he was supposed to, his shift was supposed to go to the usual time, but he had gotten permission to take leave an hour early to go to his kids' game.

And he was super excited about going to that game because he had missed a lot of them, and kid was really excited, he had promised.

And 20 minutes before the end of his shift, he gets a DV call.

And so he's mad.

He is already on eight.

I can't believe it.

This is bullshit.

And the call includes the offender has a gun in the bedroom.

And so when he goes in, he is already dysregulated.

He's already angry, he's already up there.

And we know from the science that you cannot dysregulate and then re-regulate someone who's dysregulated.

It was not a choice.

And so he goes in at an eight.

The offender is drunk, so he's already at an eight.

They're trying to, the woman just wants to get her stuff and leave.

So his partner is trying to work with that.

Now he's at a nine.

And the offenders at a nine.

And so now he's at a 10, and the offenders at a 10.

And they are literally, the officer admits, just screaming at each other in the living room.

And then, for reasons that are not super clear, uh, the guy gets up off the couch and goes into the bedroom.

And now he's at an 11.

They let the guy close the door in the bedroom.

One of the other officers, like he's got a gun in there.

And then the offender opens the door and says, You guys suck at your jobs.

I could have had anything in here.

And he is mocking them.

And he does not get shot, which I was a little surprised by as a police lawyer.

Um, but his whole point was I should not have been there.

I was already too far gone to be the person who can de-escalate the situation and reach a viable conclusion.

And the reason that stuck so much with the officer I was talking to is that it made him realize, oh my God, I have been to a ton of calls that I should not have gone to.

So when they talk about de-escalation, they talk about it for the offender.

They don't talk about it for themselves.

When I taught de-escalation in 2017 in the police department, it was a new thing, and the mood was you guys are dangerous.

It wasn't you are safer.

You can make better choices if you are calmer.

And so now we're in a situation where everybody is upset.

He does not lay hands, which is also amazing, top lawyer.

Um, but nobody actually got what they needed.

And so these calls aren't just difficult because people are crazy.

They are difficult because they activate things in the officers.

You go into these places and you see abused children.

You see abused wives, you see people who have been hurt, and then you see people who have been hurt who don't cooperate.

And it activates moral injury.

So moral injury is when you see something that violates your morals, you do something that violates your morals, or something is done to you that violate your morals.

We don't talk about it because insurance companies won't pay for it.

Um, it's all PTSD, but we know it exists, and it is differently damaging than PTSD because it breeds a sense of hopelessness, that everything is terrible, the world is terrible, people are terrible, and after enough of those, when you go into these situations where you cannot solve the problem, they build up.

When I talk to people about the symptoms of PTSD, depression, anxiety, moral injury, the one thing that I talk about, the one symptom that gets everybody's attention is irritability, because that's the one that is present for everybody.

If I had a nickel for the number of times a Leo has said to me, Well, I'm just irritable.

No, no, it's not the color of your eyes, it's not a character trait that can't be changed, it's a symptom, and we don't talk about it.

And so they go to these calls, they're dysregulated, they're irritable because that's the number one symptom.

And then we're like, Well, why can't you make better choices?

Because a part of your brain that makes those choices is not even active.

And so every component of one of these programs needs to have a here's how officers can regulate themselves.

We need to talk about it all the time.

Because we're sending them out there and they are doing things, and then once they their higher brain comes back online, they're like, oh, ooh, I did not, oh, I did not intend to do that.

It's already too late.

And then that moment is crazy expensive from a financial perspective as somebody who defended well over, you know, 500, 600 lawsuits.

Um, it's crazy expensive.

It's also incredibly damaging to society in general.

I once had to call the police.

I was living on the south side of Chicago and the second floor before flat, and I could hear the woman upstairs yelling, it's midnight, um, just let me get my purse, just let me go, just let me go.

So I call the police.

They have to take three hours to get her to decide that she's not going to leave, and the guy to decide he's not going to do anything, and so they leave.

To their credit, I wanted them to 19 Paul and be like, no police service because I had court in the morning, and I'm like, she's not gonna help.

I don't know what you want me to do.

They leave, she starts again, someone from the street calls 911, but this time the sergeant who is leading the team comes and he is well on a 12.

He doesn't ring the doorbell to me, so I can't, I don't know that he's down there, except he is trying to break open the door.

So I let him in.

He mfs me right from the jump.

I'm like, dude, you don't even know what's going on.

And then he runs up the stairs and starts pounding on the door.

They let him in, which I'm a little surprised by given what's going on, and I can hear him, and now I'm like, okay, uh, I'm in the law department.

Uh am I opening a CR?

Like, what am I doing?

Um they can't him they're gonna stop, they leave.

Now they're mad at me, so that was amazing.

But what I chose to do is go to the district station and use my powers as a chief to talk to the watch commander.

And what I hear is, oh yeah, he gets like that.

Fantastic.

What are you going to do about it?

Well, talk to him.

Oh, amazing.

And I think about him because he had six months of retirement, and I guess he went.

Those people didn't sue, they were squatters, so yay, Chicago.

Um, but I think about him because of this, because people are going to things and they are so over the top.

So my proposal is we need to make wellness a part of everything.

It's not a separate three-hour class.

We should right now in Chicago, from my perspective, be thinking of this as a level three hazardous condition, like ground zero.

Clinicians should be falling from the sky into districts trying to help people get through this.

We should be checking in with Cook County sheriffs.

We should be doing all of the things.

And I'm worried about it because those same people who have feelings about this are going to respond to these calls.

And so we can't actually get what we want.

We can't get the care that is so important to the survivors they are approaching if those officers don't have the resources themselves.

So responding to the calls is one part.

The other part is they are the calls.

So between January and November of 2024, 80 Chicago police officers got stripped of their police powers for domestic abuse, intoxication, sexual misconduct, shooting, lots of things.

But here's the thing.

20% of them were stripped of their police powers for being arrested for domestic violence.

I'm a member of the system.

I totally understand.

It is incredibly difficult to get arrested for domestic violence as a police officer.

That is three, four, five incidents in.

Actually, working on this irritability, actually working on the parts of them that are activated when they get home.

So the officer I talked about, who recognized that he was not his best self at that domestic, went home four hours late because of all the paperwork and all the stuff he had to do.

And his kid said to him, You promised me you'd show.

And he lost his marbles.

And now he's got shame about that.

And none of this is helping.

So that's my pitch about them.

But since the state attorneys are here, I did a presentation for the University of Chicago law students because I can.

And I know the director of the clinic, and so I volunteered myself to talk to them about the difficulties with their mental health when they are dealing with people in the criminal justice system because they can't help to that degree.

And what made me think about it was I still occasionally consult for a law firm that I used to hire when I was in the law department.

And I was reviewing the medical records of someone.

And what I was struck by is that this woman who is incarcerated clearly has so much trauma that she has developed the symptoms of uh borderline personality disorder.

She has difficulty regulating herself.

She uh gets super angry when things are not controlled, she cries a lot, all of the symptoms of really significant trauma.

And what I thought about is as a lawyer, as her lawyer, how would I be able to handle the moral injury of not being able to help her that way?

So she went to court.

I don't know why she thought she was gonna get out that day.

She's not correct, and she was super angry and activated and upset.

And I can only imagine that her lawyer was like, okay, so now I gotta handle this.

And then for states' attorneys, not only is there the moral injury of constantly being surrounded by these people, survivors who need help, but due to possibly some of their own mental health issues, they are not able to access it, that resources are low in the department because resources are low in all the departments, but also the knowing that you can't actually change it when they come to the state's attorney and they're meeting with you and they say things like, I really need housing, I really need this, I really need that, and you have to say that's not something I can do.

It wears on you.

It is a moral injury, it is seeing something that violates your morals, and it is part of why um the American lawyer did their annual survey, and they discovered that anxiety amongst lawyers in 2024 had dropped to 68%.

So 68% of lawyers meet criteria for generalized anxiety disorder.

Yay.

And from my perspective, substance use is a symptom.

It is self-management, it is trying to medicate something.

It is also why police officers have such a serious problem with alcohol.

It's the only drug that you have to justify not using.

You don't go to a restaurant, order dinner, and they're like, you're not gonna do the meth pairing.

That's not how it works.

When I went to Rutgers, New Jersey was the first place I have ever been in my life that I could not buy alcohol at Costco.

I was flabbergasted.

I went in there, I'm like, ooh, it's only a mile from my house.

I'm gonna make a pot roast and no liquor section.

I'm like, what?

I didn't know how to behave, but I was like, okay, fine.

Um there's a Walmart.

Thank you for trying that.

No, you have to go to a liquor store.

And that's when I realized it is so ubiquitous in our society that it never even dawned on me.

Like, I didn't have a plan B.

What do you mean there's a liquor store?

Yeah, I wound up having hamburgers because I was like, I can't, I don't know what to do.

It's the only one.

And so when they go to a domestic and it feels bad and they feel bad, and we can't talk about it, what do they do?

Let's all grab a beer.

We can't afford to be this way, and so my pitch is always the same.

We will pay for them getting an armored vehicle because we don't think of our officers as the same kind of resource.

So we'll spend a quarter of a million dollars on a tank and then not change the oil.

It just can't be.

That the only way to help the people who need the help is to help the people who are trying to provide the help.

And that would also be why I do this.

It costs a quarter of a million dollars, last estimate, to get an officer from the exam onto the street, and then we just throw it away.

We don't change the oil, we don't pay attention to these things, we don't do anything.

There was a time when I when I was a kid, when the entrance exam to CPD was held at McCormick Place.

That is no longer the case in any way.

That's not what we're doing anymore.

Those 80 officers that got stripped in 2024 is bigger than the classes.

And I pick on CPD because I think of it as my home agency, but every agency knows you can't just replace people anymore.

Everybody knows that with lawyers, state's attorney's office knows that the law department knows that.

We can't act this way, and it doesn't help.

We can do better.

We just need a plan, and I'm all about it.

So I'm honored to have the opportunity to talk about this.

Obviously, I'm super spicy about it right now.

Um, but to be fair, I'm super spicy about it all the time.

Um I'd like to talk about it.

What can we talk about?

Um, Dr.

Franklin, what would it look like to you?

What do you think would be a baseline to be able to offer new recruits or new officers?

Like what would an average day look like with the services you're talking about?

Okay.

Um, I think that y'all should use the power of the purse, sheriffs and Chicago, and get clinicians to do a five minute talk about something and videotape it and make it part of roll call.

Regulating yourself, resources that are available, just on the regular, as opposed to right now, it's a class.

It's a one-day class that also includes how to do a lemur kit.

So how to put on a tourniquet.

It's not devoted to those things.

And eight hours, I gotta be honest with you.

I am not that interested in anything.

Don't want to hear about it for eight hours.

Like, I ain't got it in me, man.

Like, so it need I think it needs to be smaller blocks, and it needs to be interspersed in everywhere.

That it's not such a this is a separate thing from us, it's just a part of it.

Every single bad case I ever had in the law department in 21 years, every single one of them.

Random other officer would come up to me and be like, hey, did you hear about that case?

My dude, did I hear about yeah, I heard about that case.

Oh, we knew something bad was gonna happen.

That's not a sentence, that's a sentence fragment.

We knew something bad was gonna happen, comma, so we what?

And the answer's gotta stop being nothing.

It doesn't have to be.

It's gotta stop being this taboo subject.

If everybody does it, if everybody's got to sit in there and they have to sit in there together, then it stops being such a separate thing.

That's the first part.

Second part, it is a myth that the Safety Act actually requires wellness visits.

It's not actually in there.

Um, I think they're amazing.

We make them qualify every year, we make them do a physical.

Why are we not checking in our heads?

And so I would propose that we take that seriously.

They're voluntary in Chicago, and they can be done either through EAP or through the person's personal mental health professional.

However, if they are done through the person's mental health professional outside, uh, they have to have their insurance cover it.

And that means you need a diagnosis.

It also means you've got to know a mental health professional, so there's a block for you.

Um, it's also not well known that you can do it that way.

I have incredible respect for EAP.

I did my internship, so I finished a master's in counseling, as you can tell, before I went to go get my Psy D at Rutgers, and so I spent the summer before I left for Rutgers doing an internship at EAP.

I think the work they do is incredible.

I also think their mandate is impossible.

They are charged with seeing all active officers, retired officers, and their families.

There cannot be enough people there to do that.

There aren't enough people, period.

And then they're doing critical incident debriefs, they're doing trainings.

So a system can be set up where those things go, where people can sign up with a vetted provider, because we don't need to be doing things with random weirdos, thank you.

Um there should be a requirement as the purse for this that there is training in how to work with first responders.

Can't tell you how many people I see who their first therapist was not understanding the culture and would say things like, well, if you have to cancel your session, you should just tell your supervisor that you have to leave.

What?

Or if your husband won't answer the phone at eight o'clock in the morning because he got off his shift at six o'clock in the morning and come pick their kid up from school, it just shows that he's not uh working with you on the structure of the family.

So it's got to be a requirement that people actually know this culture and can work with them to actually talk about things.

They are billed as psychoeducation.

So talking about irritability, talking about things to look out for, keeping this a part of things, so that it's not so weird, and then sending people when you recognize that they need help.

I had a case, I was a deputy at that time, so I didn't handle it, where two Latin youths had their car breakdown on the interchange going in out of the going into the loop, and they were by the side of the road where they were rear-ended by a drunk driver.

Their car burst into flames, they couldn't get out, and so they called their families to say goodbye.

So we got to listen to them burn to death.

That drunk driver was a Chicago police detective, and where he came from was a retirement party for Chicago police officer.

So the people who were there knew he was drunk and let him go.

Not the first time.

So he went to prison, and those kids burned to death.

Ten years later, I'm from the incident.

I'm at EAP.

The case got changed on appeal.

So that was in the paper.

And one of the guys who worked in substance use at EAP said to me, Did you hear about that case?

Oh my dude.

Oh God.

Yeah, he was working in records at uh 26 in California at that time, checking people in.

And two detectives came in and said, Oh, did you hear about that case?

Oh, we knew that was something bad was gonna happen.

So we let it.

That's the culture that we need to change.

And part of what we need to do is make it a part of the culture.

We talk about these things.

If you need help, you get help.

If you think if we think you need help, we talk to you.

Um, Dr.

Bring, can you talk a little bit more about the insurance um issues?

Like the diagnosis needed.

I think that's something that obviously needs to be looked at legislatively.

Um, I will say that the state of Illinois did an amazing thing by passing the law that says that if you're on your government's insurance, there's no copay.

That also does not get as much press as it really should.

So the issue with wellness visits and giving a diagnosis isn't the diagnosis, because you know, we'll do something.

It is the perception that if I get a diagnosis for adjustment disorder, that they're gonna take my batch.

All of the cops.

Oh, that's right, yes, because I do family, I do family therapy.

Um, and I see spouses, so yes, on their insurance, they get to get mental health treatment with no copies.

Um, it's not as well publicized as I would like, so people seem surprised all the time.

Um, but we're not publicizing it, and this foid nonsense is murdering me.

Because everybody assumes if I get diagnosed with depression, they're gonna take my food.

Actually, no.

But the assumption is if I do anything to make myself better, there's going to be a consequence.

So obviously, that's like um that's such an issue across law enforcement.

But um, just to access mental health.

Um, just so I'm understanding, and we we talked about this, but um, is you need a diagnosis for a wellness visit for insurance to cover.

Yes, is that correct?

Yes, for insurance to cover, you need a diagnosis.

Okay, that seems like uh a large means like if you just want to talk with somebody, you're not able to do that and needs to need to say that I'm oh wow, that's that's interesting.

That's and that's for insurance to cover it.

Yep.

Okay.

So other departments cover it.

It's between 150 and 175.

It's an hour.

Um, it is difficult to quantify the benefit.

And so that is part of why you know I get so much flack about budgets.

So my other hobby horse that I can't shut up about is academia applies for grants all the time.

And their research is always stuck behind a paywall.

There's a professor at the University of Buffalo who has done almost all at first.

Now there's other people joining in the research on the physical effects of unlimited stress on law enforcement, about increased cholesterol and cardiovascular problems and all of it.

His name's John Vellante.

His research is behind a paywall.

Because he puts it on, you know, PubMed, and then the grant is like, hey, and so you have to pay 75 or 100 an article to learn these things.

So I was able to access them because I was at the university.

Well, first I was at the University of Chicago, and then I was at Rutgers.

So I could use my ID to get that information for my dissertation.

But grants.

We could be applying for grants and using those grants to do wellness visits.

So the theory that the Safety Act was sort of doing, um, that a letsby is now considering rules about it.

Although the rules right now about wellness visits do not match what is happening because they thought you just call people in and ask them about their symptoms and then document them.

Nobody's doing that.

Um, but the actual visit, the idea was that it decreases stigma if you make it a regular thing.

We refer to it as a neck up checkup, where it's just a thing you do.

We don't know that it decreases stigma, but we could use a grant, do a brief survey, anonymous at the end of the visit, tabulate the research and then publish it.

So that's always been my theory.

We can do a thousand wellness visits.

We can do a thousand well-in-visits for and do the research and get Qualtrex and coordinate the whole thing for 250,000.

The price of one of those armored vehicles.

Um, so I'm sorry, you said something, just that department.

So is it is it specific to the department or is it Illinois legislation with the wellness visit coverage?

Illinois, um, with doing them or who um just with um with it needing a diagnosis.

No, that is insurance companies.

So if the agency, I work with agencies who cover it.

If the agency covers it, there's no need for a diagnosis because then I don't submit to insurance.

Is it the hiring or like the law enforcement agency, or is it the the comp like the insurance company?

Law enforcement agencies, fire like um it's the it's the contact they have with uh with the provider that must be that not in no, it doesn't involve insurance at all.

Okay, the agency contacts the provider and says we want to start doing wellness visits, and then we set it up.

So it's insurance.

So it's like a line item in the department's budget, yes.

Unless we do grants, I can pipe in here too.

Um, we provide some of those grants for agencies um so that they can do those mental health check-ins.

So um we have the currently the largest data set in the state of Illinois of first responders about what they actually want when it comes to mental health provisions.

And to your point, Dr.

Franklin, the number one thing, and it crosses police and fire that people want is annual mental health check-ins, the number one thing, which surprised the heck out of me when we saw it because I was like, they all want therapy canines, we know this.

Um, but they wanted mental health check-ins.

Um, so we funded and we have grant funding that does that.

We work with providers just like Dr.

Franklin, um, to assist agencies to do that if the agency does not put it in their line item.

Now it's typically like you said, 175-ish per person.

Um, but because there isn't that stringent, like you said, the safety act does not actually tell you how to do these.

Um, there isn't that stringent guideline on what has to be done.

Um, we found a lot of ways that work for agencies who aren't like we're gonna send somebody.

We've brought people into those agencies during the day.

There's all sorts of ways to do this.

The biggest point of that is the education piece to command and to people that says, hey, this is what your people actually want.

We know we've surveyed more people on the state in the state of Illinois on this than the national FOP does for their documented survey that they put out every two years that the national FOP does.

We have more people in Illinois saying the same dang thing.

Which I think that's an education piece.

That's getting more people at that level to have this information.

I said I'm teaching that class right now.

We're we're literally, I have 10 chiefs and a couple members of the Illinois State Policing class right now talking about this very thing.

And we keep doing it.

And that I think that's one of the most important parts is making sure that these agencies know at the end of the day, you don't have to like mental health.

You have to help your people.

And at the end of the day, if you don't help your people, they're your friggin' backup.

Right.

That's at the end of the day, you're gonna hurt your people if you don't bring this to the to the forefront.

So I do agree with a lot of that.

Um and I think there's mountains to move, but we know it takes 10 years to change a culture.

And I would argue that we're maybe two years in.

So we're doing it though.

That's amazing.

Thank you.

Okay, so I have a question for you too.

And I'm I wish I I knew a little bit more.

But uh, my understanding is that State Rep Mary Gill passed something a couple years ago that it had that the insurance company have to cover um couple therapy for first responders.

So would there so would there be a way to legislatively mandate insurance companies have to uh cover for first responders these wellness visits?

There is an inaccurate amount of information on this.

And I will say we went back last year.

Um I had my lobbyists go back and do it and we talked to the Department of Insurance.

I can read you word for word what was told to us by the Department of Insurance.

The General Assembly did not give DOI authority to enforce any provision of that law.

So they cannot enforce any section of it.

The new law's requirements only apply to self-insured plans offered by counties, municipalities, fire protection districts.

If a county municipality or fire protection district buys a fully insured product from a health insurance issuer, this act does not apply to the issuer of that product.

We cannot actually make insurance companies do anything.

We don't have that authority.

Um, so yes, that passed, but it only is working if you are self-employed or self-insured.

It is not working for fully insured agencies.

So part of again, the education piece that we push out is hey, check and see whether or not this actually works for you.

Um it went into effect in June of last year.

But those self-insured plans, it's not, it's not gonna work for.

Um, so can we legislatively mandate it?

Unless you can legislatively mandate blue class and blue shield to do things.

No.

Okay.

So you can't make an insurance company cover anything by state law.

I don't unless you can go to the department of drug insurance and say we want to mandate what insurance companies do, which I don't think you're gonna get anywhere with.

Okay.

That just seems more easier than going department by department, you know, to make ensure it would be like, you know, the county has to RFP out the insurance contract every four or five years.

And I assume the city and everyone else has to do the same.

Um they've had blue cross per shield forever, but they do have to uh do procurement method.

Um, so would that be probably the recommended point of making sure that this was covered?

Because it just seems wild to me that a wellness check is 175 and not covered.

Yeah, and I think part of it too is talking to, you know, we consistently talk to the risk managers funds.

So we talk to ICRMT, we talk to those big groups too of hey, if we're looking at it from a risk management option, um, you know, if I can't find a way, I'm gonna make one.

So we're looking for it to risk management.

Let's do it that way.

Um, so we do think if it becomes more of a collective effort and there's a louder voice, um, then yes, we can we can change some of that tide.

I do think the answer is looking at it is risk and liability, because otherwise we're not even gonna touch your budgets or even be part of your conversations.

Um, the number of departments who have told us, hey, we were gonna build wellness program, we had this money put away for visits, but it decided that you know our chief decided we needed chairs for the conference table instead, like that's normal for a conversation that we have.

Um so I do think it you've got to hit it at that line of where they're actually going to feel it and listen to it.

Sure.

So I that's what I was gonna talk about questions.

Sorry, I I did have a comment on uh so Caitlin, well, you just said about the risk management, that's exactly I had made a note to think about it because that that is um, and I'm sure you're gonna hear it today with all those chiefs, but that is where the administrations and the chiefs have to look at it from.

If I have, I know Katie and I talked about it a few years ago, and I actually went to the CEO summit, the axon CEO summit, the body cameras, because they're able to do a lot of stuff.

I'm like, your cameras capture um heart rates, blood pressures, escalations, your supervisors record those.

So what's wrong with having um and what do you think uh the two of you collectively about like putting it on um uh a supervisor, right?

You have to review those videos.

So if you have an officer who responds to a domestic violence call or a fatal car crash or a sex abuse case or something, like making it mandatory that they have to do the check-in per this incident, right?

So that um maybe relieve some of the stigma because you if you look at it from a risk management point of view, then the department does have to pay for that visit.

So um, what do you guys think of something like like that, like uh putting it in a policy first um to get rid of the stigma?

Do you think that something like that would work?

So I write a lot of those Lexapol policies.

I sit on that board with Lexapole and Power DMS.

Um, and I will tell you they're gonna shy away from it being a policy.

It can be a procedure.

Um, but being a policy, I think that then you become a the supervisors become part of that liability chain, um, which is also something they're probably not going to do.

Um, but what we've seen a lot of success in is doing FTO level trainings, doing supervisor visor level trainings and letting them know, like Dr.

Franklin was saying, some of those red flags, letting them know when to check the dang oil.

Um, you know, having those conversations, I think it's it's gotta be a multi-tiered approach.

We know that.

We're talking to the city managers, we're talking to the risk management companies, we're talking to the insurance companies.

We also gotta do training at all those different command levels, which we're doing.

Um I just think it's gotta be all of those different efforts.

I don't know, Dr.

Franklin, what have you got?

Oh, absolutely.

I freaked out a chief doing a presentation once for an agency out here, um, when I talked about critical incident debriefs.

And I said, traditionally, y'all do those for shootings.

Fantastic.

I think that you should do a check-in or a debrief, whether official or unofficial, if you told someone what happened during your day and they made a face.

Because if you check in with the rest of us and we're like, ugh, then that is something that you need to talk about.

But they get so used to, well, I pulled a body out of a car, blah.

Like, wait a minute.

And so I I think it has to start right there.

It's gotta start with changing the idea that this is a separate punitive thing.

I'll be honest with you in Chicago, I could 100% have found 250,000 by identifying two cases that would not exist if we had checked in with the officer.

Yeah.

And so we don't count any of it that way.

Right.

Right.

In Cook County, um, we actually train the peer support and debrief for all of Cook County's sheriff's department.

Um just the information that they have back about the changes that they can implement, very small changes of just how you have that first initial conversation, they're moving the needle.

Um, you know, they're lucky that they've got a great program that is able to do those and get those trainings and go through that international critical incident stress foundation training.

Um, you know, we're implementing it in Chicago.

We just did Chicago Fire Department, we're doing theirs as well.

Um some of those shifts are starting.

It's just you've also got to let everybody else up that chain, which is the importance of having these kinds of conversations with the different people you've got in this group, know what's going on and also know how to support it.

Um because yeah, we as a nonprofit Dr.

Franklin's agency too, like we can support it as much as we can.

That's what we exist for.

But at the end of the day, if it doesn't go back up that chain legislatively, um there's no actual tangible teeth in that support.

starting it's just you've also got to let everybody else up that chain which is the importance of having these kinds of conversations with the different people you've got in this group know what's going on and also know how to support it um because yeah we as a nonprofit dr franklin's agency too like we can support it as much as we can that's what we exist for but at the end of the day if it doesn't go back up that chain legislatively um there's no actual tangible teeth in that support sure so the the reason that wellness visits I think are part of a Lesby is that if you call them training then they don't impact the uh contracts and so there's I you know I let people talk about whatever they want but I leave them with a flyer that is full of psychoeducation because that way it doesn't impact the contract and does anyone have any other questions or comments I know we only have just a few minutes left and that was a great you know discussion and thank you so much Dr.

Franklin for you know sharing your knowledge and everything and I think Katie definitely we have found some recommendations from this discussion um but does anyone else have any last minute questions and like this is always you know recorded and will be shared on Legistar so if you want to go back and then reach out later just let me know you can always follow up with me.

Any other comments or questions all right well Dr.

Franklin it was so nice meeting you thank you so much for coming and giving us all your you know the story and everything that was just really really wonderful and I think you know when we continue to have these conversations we're definitely going to be looking at the recommendations.

I am honored to be here I really don't well obviously I've devoted two careers to this idea um and I am happy to help in any way that I can thank you thanks Caitlin too so glad to see thank you yeah and again please reach out anytime with any questions or if you want to set up a meeting or anything like that.

If there's no other comments Alderman Tbaros would you adjourn the meeting yes no thank you to our speakers and thank you we adjourned this meeting thank you for joining us today thank you everybody thank you